Spain is a fantastic destination that is chosen by lots of experts. Most of these experts come to this beloved nation from the UK. There is no way for us to really point a finger at them, is there? The seaside, the weather, the relaxed way of life amongst many other things draw them to Spain. There are millions of tourists monthly who come to Spain, many for the Spain Event, and here’s why they all do. We have compiled some of the reasons why you should add a visit to Spain to your bucket list.

1. Life’s a Beach

You’ll need to take a lot of time to be able to visit each and every single of Spain’s beaches. The beaches here are worth your time and attention. The Spanish beaches offer beautiful, amazingly relaxing and scenic atmospheres. These beaches are why many people prefer to come and have a great time in Spain. Picture yourself living next to the amazing atmosphere of a beach. You can even head down to the beach whenever you feel like taking a dip, strolling or just laying by the sandy beach.

2. By Yourself With Nature

Spain isn’t only about the ocean. There are lots of beautiful landscapes in this beloved country that attract people. Why not take a hike on a sunny day on these landscapes as many Spaniards love doing?

3. The Island Life

Worry not if you don’t fancy the idea of the mainland. There are seven large islands within Spain and lots of smaller islands for you. If you consider yourself a true islander, you can settle on one of these islands and live happily ever after.

4. The Food

You’ll find it hard for yourself to take anything else once you get accustomed to Spanish food. Spain really knows how to take care of your stomach needs with the tastiest of market food including jamon and tapas. Need I say that they are insanely cheap?

5. Weird Traditional Festivals Galore

Everyone knows that Spaniards never shy away from parties. Spaniards are particularly great at partying in a weird way. Want to tromp tomatoes with your bare feet? Buckle up because there’s a festival for you to do just that! You can also burn huge paper statues. Prefer being ferried in an open coffin in a horror-like experience as a celebration? We’ve got you. Speaking of weird…

6. Marvellous Rooftop Bar Experiences

I know that there are good rooftop bar views in many cities. But what of the perfect and ideal weather? Most rooftop bars will obviously have terrible weather that’ll ruin your great time. This is not the case in Spain. Cities like Madrid have rooftop bars that are utterly perfect. You can enjoy beautiful views from these bars in the perfect weather as the sun shines through.

7. Streets With Character

Spain is a paradise for photographers. If you are in love with photography, you’ll definitely love Spain. The beautiful streets within Spain are full of character together with the characters that reside within these streets.

8. Awesome Historical Attractions

Spain’s highly rated attractions and buildings include Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia, the Great Mosque of Cordoba, Alhambra in Granada, the Prado Museum in Madrid and 5 San Lorenzo de El Escorial. These attractions offer remarkable sights as they come with interesting stories of their pasts.

9. Some Vitamin D

The most probable reason why many Brits love to move and live in Spain permanently is because of the weather. The ocean waves cool the hot summers, while winters still get some sunshine.

10. Magical Sunsets

Spain is unquestionably known as a sunny destination. Not enough credit is given to its beautiful sunsets. Cities located on high landscapes including Barcelona and Madrid boast of spectacularly beautiful sunsets.

Choosing a hotel can be an uphill task for many people because they have to deal with the large number of promotions, programs, and deals out there, and this can make things feel overwhelming. To make matters worse, website and hotels post amazing photos and slick promotion copies that end up making you believe that you will be staying in luxury when you get to the hotel. How will you be able to tell whether a hotel lives up to its hype and if it is the right hotel for you?

Different travellers have different needs when they are looking for a hotel, and you need to ask yourself what is important to you. Whether you are looking for a great location such as Ikos Andalusia in Spain, a great deal, or even a great B&B, we have broken down the process of choosing a hotel to make it easier for you to find the best hotel.

What Matters to You the Most?

Before you can start the process, you need to first ask yourself what type of accommodation you are interested in and how much you are willing to spend. Do you see location being more important than price, or is your budget limited to a given amount? Are you interested in staying in a hotel with a spa and fitness centre, or would you like to stay in a smaller hotel that has a lot of local charm?

Once you have made a decision on what is the most important thing, then you can start making a more targeted search. Below are some of the most important factors you need to consider when choosing a hotel, and tips to use to find a property that meets each particular need.

Price: Many of the booking engines out there have an option of sorting the results using price. Use the booking engines to see options available and their rates, then go to the web site of the hotel and book from there – hotels tend to give customers the best rates when booking from their sites, and some match the lowest price you find elsewhere.

Location: Booking engines will give you the option of viewing the results on a map so you can find the hotels located close to the beach or neighbourhoods you prefer. Another great source of hotels is guidebooks because they list hotels by plotting them on a city map.

Amenities: Booking engines will give you the option to specify certain amenities when searching. Some include swimming pool, fitness centre, and restaurant.

Frequent flier miles and loyalty programmes: if you a person who travels a lot or if you are a member of the frequent flier programme, then you should consider joining a hotel loyalty programme. This will enable you to earn points that can cover a future hotel stay, and you can also accumulate airline miles if the hotel partners with frequent flier programmes.

Eco-friendliness: people have become more aware of the environment, and some look for ways of minimising their impact. This is why they look for green hotels through organisations such as the Green Hotel Association and Green Globe.

Family-friendliness: If you plan to bring your family along, then you should look at family-friendliness and special deals.

Real-Life Experience

There are very few people who do not check out reviews when booking a hotel. Reviews are written by fellow travellers on sites such as Booking.com. TripAdvisor, and many more. Reviews let you know how friendly the staff is, the quality of Wi-Fi, and cleanliness of the rooms.

These sites will let users post photos of the hotel – which gives a better picture of the condition of the rooms instead of the professional snapshots taken by the hotel.

You should take the reviews with a little bit of scepticism. If you see overly fawning reviews, they could have been written by the employees of the hotel disguised as guests, while some negative reviews come from travellers who have their hidden agendas. But despite that, most of the reviews you see on these sites are honest and an invaluable resource that will help you find the best hotel for you.

Egypt gets a lot of bad publicity, and that dates back to the 2011 Arab Spring. The general instability of this entire region doesn’t help, but in truth, the country of Egypt is full of mesmerising history, serene beaches, and pulsing night life. The following are 6 reasons why you need to visit Egypt in 2019.

1) It’s Safe

Egypt might look like a dangerous place since it’s in the Middle East, considering it’s surrounded by civil war in Syria, the long-running conflict between Israel and Palestine, and of course migrant crises. However, Egypt is not the actual centre of any of these conflicts. In fact, Egypt is very dependent on tourism, so many in this country are quite welcoming to visitors. They want you to feel like you’re at home, so they look out for you, help you out, and offer directions freely.

2) It’s Affordable

Conversion rates for euros and dollars to the Egyptian pound are usually pretty favourable to those visiting from outside the country. You can eat pretty well for just $5USD. Everything can be haggled, so if you know what you’re doing, you can stretch your money quite a long way. Now is a great time to visit Egypt considering that tourism has yet to recover fully. That means places aren’t too crowded, and Egypt hotel and tour prices are still pretty low.

4) An Exquisite Food Scene

You’re going to gain weight here, but it’s worth it. Egyptian cuisine has lots of flavour, but there’s not much spice. That lets you dine without discomfort. The most frequent food you’ll find here is called fool (or fava beans) with falafel. You can get this from a street vendor, if your stomach isn’t too sensitive, but you can also enjoy it in both chain and fancy restaurants. It’s trendy in Egypt for restaurants to only use clean establishments for cooking traditional street foods, so you can savour them without getting sick. Vegetarians should certainly visit here, considering how much of the local cuisine is either vegetarian or vegan by nature. You can get full and happy on koshary, a traditional dish found right on the street made of macaroni, rice, tiny noodles, chickpeas, lentils, tomato sauce, and fried onion.

5) Stunning History

You might not believe this, but the pyramids aren’t actually the most amazing monument the country has to offer. You can ride the Nile in either direction on a small river cruise to witness five millennia of pharaonic greatness. The temples you see all illustrate how every pharaoh tried to one-up their predecessor. Huge marble columns and statues are filled with hieroglyphic carvings that make you feel as if you are in a different time. Some temples even have their colour still. Check out the two temples of Abu Simbel which were built by Ramses II in the 13th century BC. The Egyptian government made a 1959 decision to build the Aswan Dam that would have submerged this temple underwater. However, an international movement to save this monument was headed up by UNESCO, so that resources were dedicated to the relocation of this temple to its current location. Not all the history here revolves around the pharaohs, as there is also Islamic architecture and history as well. Islamic Cairo’s streets are a millennium old, and their mosque walls are meticulously carved with pieces of Arabic calligraphy.

6) Gorgeous Beaches

It might seem like you can find wonderful beaches anywhere, be it Thailand or the Caribbean. Yet, Egypt’s beaches might be some of the best. You can visit Dahab, Hurgada, or Sharm el Sheikh on the Red Sea for serenity and corals or Alexandria on the Mediterranean for waves and adventures. Red Sea corals prove very resistant to the world’s climate change, and low rainfall makes for unusually high visibility, so it’s a great dive spot. Also, Egyptian beaches are right on the desert, so there are no bugs! These beaches are often also far enough away from big cities to have skies full of starlight. The lack of light pollution is a wonderful thing indeed.

It might not be one of the more obvious choices, but for the families that enjoy an adventure, Malaysian Borneo provides safety and comfort alongside its remote waterways, tribal villages, and rainforests, that are waiting to be explored. It is also easy to travel around Borneo, while the combination of 4X4, boat journeys and quick domestic flights offer an extensive variety. You will also discover that most of the hotels provide every practical facility that you may need, along with space and opportunity to explore. The best part is that not much is standing around. Borneo is an area that will always tempt you into the next active adventure. This includes your little ones keenly spotting animals like the proboscis monkey, or your older kids traversing through the jungle ropeways.

Visit the Wildlife Sanctuaries In Sepilok

The rainforests in Borneo include thick covers which do not make road travel very easy, yet a great value-for-money network of domestic flights offers an alternative and a hassle-free method to travel around. Fly into the Sandakan Airport (there are flights which are direct from Kuala Lumpur or Kota Kinabalu), and you are all set for your adventures in the Eastern State of Sabah. If you spend 3 to 4 days in Sepilok, which is a 30-minute drive from Sandakan, you can enjoy a very gentle introduction to the wildlife in Borneo before you set off into wilder territory. Sepilok is well-known for its famous orangutan sanctuary. The Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center shelter approximately 70 orangutans which are undergoing gradual rehabilitation before releasing them back into their own environment. The success of the sanctuary has resulted in the development of the Sun Bear Reserve and a Rainforest Discovery Centre. There is a big nursery which takes care of all the new arrivals, which are usually the babies who are abandoned or their mothers have died, along with confiscated pets. Separated by a glass barrier to protect the animals from any human diseases, you are able to watch these orangutans swinging and playing on tyres and ropes. If you stay in one of the well-sized chalets on offer at the Sepilok Nature Reserve, you will be in walking distance from these amazing sanctuaries.

Spot Wildlife Along the Kinabatangan River

From Sepilok, you are able to travel through the jungle which is close to the Kinabatangan River, if you stay at one of the riverside lodges. Many of these lodges are basic yet still very comfortable along with individual chalets that provide enough space for your little ones to run around. The activities on offer usually involve small groups of 8 to 10 people, which may mean you will join up with one or more families. Your journey to these lodges is by boat from Sandakan. After you have settled in, you can take one of the boat safaris at dusk. When you float down the quieter tributaries of the Kinabatangan river, the naturalist guide will be looking for wildlife to show you. You will probably see proboscis monkeys that dangle from trees and on occasion distinctive silhouettes of hornbills over the horizon. If you book your stay at the Abai Jungle Lodge, your boat safari will continue until it gets dark where you can watch the fireflies that light up the surrounding foliage like Christmas lights. The next day, you can enjoy another 2 boat safaris, one at dusk and one at dawn. This is when all the animals are more active. For families with small children, this is one of the safest and easiest ways to marvel at the wildlife. The boats lie low so it is easy to spot creep-crawlies and monitor lizards that frequent the river bank. You should also bring binoculars along to spot monkeys and the birdlife.

End Your Trip on One of Borneo’s Beaches

After you have explored the inland it is time to head out to one of the coasts. Lahad Datu has its own airstrip which runs the flights to Kota Kinabalu on Borneo’s north coast. If you would like to stay in one of the classic beach hotels, the Shangri-La’s Rasa Ria Resort and Spa are only 20 minutes away from the airstrip. This resort spans over 1.8 miles (3km) of a private beach where you can enjoy endless cocktails in your Coco Bay bikini. It also includes a putting green, children’s club, horse-riding school, along with kiddies pools and slides. The forest behind this resort is one of the protected reserves that offer a variety of different walking trails. There are also daily run guided walks on offer. For the families that have older children, the Gaya Island Resort is one of the better options. Take a short trip by boat from Kota Kinabula to Gaya which is one of the islands which makes up Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park. This hotel is situated on a bay backed by a lush and thick jungle. When stepping onto the tiny jetty of this property, you will see the tips of the wooden-villas which poke out from the vegetation. There are trips to visit the coral gardens which run daily, along with an experienced biologist who will help with identifying the different creatures.